Inside the black box of cross‐functional spillover – a lesson from the functionality development of fine ceramics

Contrary to its conspicuous achievement as an industrial society, Japan has been experiencing long lasting economic stagnation due to a paradigm shift toward an information society that emerged in the 1990s. This contraction can be attributed to the shift from a growth‐oriented trajectory in an industrial society to a functionality‐oriented trajectory in an information society. However, a noteworthy surge in new innovation in Japan has been observed in recent years in the leading edge innovation challenge in the Japanese manufacturing industry. This trend can largely be attributed to effective assimilation of cross‐functional spillover in an indigenous growth‐oriented trajectory. Thus, elucidation of the inside of the black box of cross‐functional spillover has become a crucially important issue for Japan’s shift to a functionality‐oriented trajectory. Constructive suggestions for this elucidation can be observed in the shifting dynamism from structural‐materials to functional‐materials in the area of certain fine ceramics. This dynamism is based on effective assmilation of cross‐functional spillover and can provide a significant insight for the foregoing elucidation. Prompted by this postulate, this paper attempts to analyze spillover dynamism in fine ceramics and to extract constructive suggestions suggestive to Japan’s shift from a growth‐oriented trajectory to a functionality‐oriented trajectory.